Education Commons^™

"Meet Me At The 50": A Critical Discourse Analysis Of How Higher Education Curriculum Is Meeting The Needs Of Black, Male Student-Athletes, Julia Diane Morris

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The overarching goal of this research is to make proverbial payments towards Ladson-Billings’ (2006) “education debt” owed to historically resilient populations by promoting equitable and democratic practices in all facets of education. Black men, specifically those who participate in athletics, are advocated for in this research because these men identify as part of a community of voices who are not only historically oppressed but are being failed by current educational practices. Further, student-athletes provide a predetermined and specific sociocultural context, and thus social location, by which to compare how various types of critical literacy assignments are addressing said contexts. Using …

I Had To Do The Reading: A Phenomenological Case Study Of College English Students, Jennifer Eleanor Frank

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The purposes of this qualitative phenomenological case study were to investigate multiple student experiences in a general elective introduction to literature course when music was added as an autonomously structured assignment. Music and song lyrics are no strangers to the classroom setting, but there is a gap in the literature examining the space where students can create meaningful links between music they enjoy and assigned course readings in college English. Informed by social constructivism and English studies theories this study was designed to investigate any impact that autonomously driven music-link assignments may have on students. The structured assignments were called …

A Multi Case Study Of Community College Discipline Faculty’S Participation In A Disciplinary Literacy Professional Learning Community, Kristen Howell Gregory

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Many students enter college with inadequate reading, writing, and critical thinking skills to successfully navigate discipline-specific college-level coursework (Duff, 2010; Hyland, 2006; Lea & Street, 1998; Tsui, 2002). As such, college faculty, and specifically community college faculty, are challenged to meet the multiple literacy needs of their students while still maintaining high expectations within their discipline-specific courses. One option is for discipline faculty (e.g., history) to integrate disciplinary literacy instruction within their courses. As discipline faculty are deemed experts in their content area and often not trained in literacy, professional development focused on disciplinary literacy could provide the knowledge and …

Using Pre-Calculus And Calculus Student Work To Examine Student Problem Solving Abilities In Online And Face-To-Face Mathematics Courses, Sarah Catherine Ferguson

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

This study compares the outcomes of student learning between two pairs of courses. Each pair of courses consists of an online section and a face-to-face section. One pair of courses focuses on pre-calculus content while the second pair focuses on calculus content. Both pairs of courses are taught by the same instructor using the same course appropriate materials. Participants for this study include 9 online and 14 face-to-face pre-calculus students and 14 online and 23 face-to-face calculus students from an urban community college in the southeastern portion of the U.S. Written responses from the subjects to a collection of problems …

The Effect Of Device When Using Smartphones And Computers To Answer Multiple-Choice And Open-Response Questions In Distance Education, Thomas Royce Wilson

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Traditionally in higher education, online courses have been designed for computer users. However, the advent of mobile learning (m-learning) and the proliferation of smartphones have created two challenges for online students and instructional designers. First, instruction designed for a larger computer screen often loses its effectiveness when displayed on a smaller smartphone screen. Second, requiring students to write remains a hallmark of higher education, but miniature keyboards might restrict how thoroughly smartphone users respond to open- response test questions. The present study addressed both challenges by featuring m-learning’s greatest strength (multimedia) and by investigating its greatest weakness (text input).

The …

Global And Criteria Based Judgments Of An Undergraduate Exit Writing Examination, Katrice Alexandria Hawthorne

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The effect of a calibration strategy requiring students to predict and postdict their scores on a writing exam was investigated. The utility of rubric-referenced calibration and the interaction between achievement and self-efficacy on calibration accuracy were also explored. Five hundred ninety six undergraduate students enrolled in an urban, comprehensive, public university participated. Students were assigned to one of three calibration conditions: (1) a global condition (overall judgments only), (2) a global and criteria condition (a general rubric), or (3) a global and detailed criteria condition (a detailed rubric). Students in all three conditions provided global calibrations before and after the …

At The College Gates: A Phenomenological Study Of Stem Identity Formation At A Stem Program At A Historical Black University, Maria O'Hearn

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

Melguizo and Wolniak (2011) contend that increasing the success of underrepresented minority students in STEM fields is a significant national and state policy issue given the data showing gaps in gender and racial/ethnic bachelors degree completion rates in these fields (Rask, 2010). Recommendations made by the National Alliance for Partnerships in Equity (NAPE, 2013) highlight the importance of school structures as being fundamental for improving the STEM pipeline from high school to college for underrepresented minority students. Thus, the purposes of this study were to describe the lived experiences of African American students attending a STEM (Science, Technology, Engineering and …

Preservice Teachers' Epistemological Beliefs: A Study Of Student And Course Characteristics, Peter B. Baker

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The research project described herein was designed to measure teacher education students' epistemological beliefs. Teacher education students' epistemological beliefs were compared according to participants' academic and demographic characteristics as well as characteristics of the courses in which students are enrolled at the time of study data collection. Participants included teacher education students currently studying in Old Dominion University's Darden College of Education. Results indicated that, while participants' epistemological beliefs and the development thereof are both, at times, related to their demographic and academic characteristics as well as the characteristics of the courses in which they were enrolled during the study, …

The Impact Of Developmental Mathematics Courses And Age, Gender, And Race And Ethnicity On Persistence And Academic Performance In Virginia Community Colleges, James Dael Wolfle

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

This research study examined the 2006 cohort of First-Time-in-College students from all 23 community colleges in Virginia. The goal was to examine the persistence of these students to the fall 2007 semester and the success of these students in their first college-level mathematics course. The main predictor variable was whether the first mathematics course taken was a developmental or college-level course. Other main predictor variables examined were the age, gender, and race and ethnicity of the student. Race and ethnicity was broken into the categories White, Black, and Other. Interaction variables were created to determine if age, race and ethnicity, …

The Impact Of An Intensive Experience On Prospective Teachers' Perception Of The Uses Of Digital, Interactive Text Among K-12 Students, Francis W. Stonier

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

The purpose of this study was to measure pre-service teacher perception, awareness, and potential use of digital literacies, media, and digital interactive text in their future classrooms. The study grew from the theoretical rationales of new literacies, technological pedagogical content knowledge, and constructivism. New literacies are essentially the skills teachers and students need to utilize and develop in order to interact with novel digital sources. Research was aimed not simply at exposing pre-service teachers to the possibilities, but to gauge their current knowledge, interest, and views of potential future application of said technologies and student learning needs before and after …

Effect Of A Mindfulness Intervention On Community College Students' Writing Apprehension And Writing Performance, Megan E. Britt

Teaching & Learning Theses & Dissertations

This experimental study used a quantitative data collection strategy to examine whether a mindfulness intervention, a three-minute breathing exercise marked by focused attention on the sensations of breath, would affect writing anxiety and writing performance measures. The researcher compared Daly-Miller Writing Apprehension surveys and narrative writing samples from 277 students enrolled in a freshman composition course at a southeastern community college, half of whom practiced the mindful-breathing technique at class onset.

Quantitative results revealed students in the mindful-breathing group experienced a statistically significant decrease in writing apprehension and mechanical error scores from pre- to post-measures when compared to controls. No …